Why has Corbyn asked to meet EU Negotiator Barnier next week to discuss Brexit?

[TheaSaurass]

I know that team Corbyn claimed Labour won the June 8th General Election with Labour’s 262 parliamentary seats to the Conservatives 318, but now Article 50 has been triggered, the last thing a government needs is the leader of an opposition party deciding he needs to add his two pence worth – and that sends such weak negative negotiating signals to an EU side already playing hardball – and the markets funding our spending deficits and national debt.

Admitted Labour campaigned at the general election for a Brexit that respects the EU Referendum result, and understands that the UK will therefore have to leave the Single Market, but mirroring the obvious UK governments stance to an EU that sells substantially more to us than we do to them, Mr Corbyn wants the tariff free trade Mr Barnier confirmed just Friday – cannot be “frictionless” as we are leaving the Single Market to control our own borders.

Remarkably Mr Corbyn felt that he should mention Labour will not make a commitment “at this stage” (before an election due in 5-years has been called) to paying for access to a Single Market exporting more to us, but he DID just bring up the ‘Norway model’ he was said to have favoured before.

The ‘Norway model’ is more complex than (the UK) STILL paying the EU and still having the ‘Freedom of Movement’ of EU citizens who arguably would be more of a problem for a broader 65 million citizen economy UK, than the smaller 5 million economy of Norway – but for those remainers that pretend no one said on the Referendum ballot paper or in the media that we would leave the Single Market when many on interview were recorded saying just that – clearly no one at all said ‘Freedom of Movement’ of EU citizens, would remain after Brexit.

As what would be the main point of the UK leaving the EU if still ‘staying and paying’, with open borders, via a model that works for a mainly oil and fish economy of Norway with a more limited scope for unknown annual immigration numbers, versus a UK with services and home availability already stretched?

The General Election was early June, it is now early July, surely it’s a bit unseemly if anyone, never mind a party not in government, to start a dialog with the EU on a Brexit model that includes ‘Freedom of Movement’ without having first asked the people, via a general election manifesto commitment?

atenco. so you think, because our government aren't doing well, and are not popular, Labour should jump in, on the supposition that they'll be next in power?

atenco. so you think, because our government aren't doing well, and are not popular, Labour should jump in, on the supposition that they'll be next in power?

lucydogz, it's not so much that our government isn't doing well, our government is not functioning at all.

The former head of the Vote Leave campaign (yes, the Vote Leave campaign) branded the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, as “thick as mince” and “as lazy as a toad” over his performance as Brexit Secretary to date.

It comes on the same day that Davis made a half-day trip to Brussels to negotiate with EU officials, where he faced criticism for sitting down for talks without any notes. Davis’s approach was in stark contrast to the European Commission negotiators, who sat with large piles of briefing papers in organised binders.

The UK has not had a functioning government since March. In cirumstances where the government is not functioning and, seemingly, about to collapse, it is very prudent for the Leader of the Opposition to ensure he is as well prepared as possible for government.

Fine. I just believe that, just because democracy isn't functioning as well as you like, you undemocratically jump into the breach. Pure political oppurtunism IMO.

fwiw I think the Tories are shambolic. I just don't think Labour and the SNP are interested in helping the situation.

Just because the Tories are enacting Lord of the Flies does not mean that Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon should be expected to down tools and do nothing.

Jeremy Corbyn is doing what Leader of the Opposition and Leader of Labour should do. Similarly, Nicola Sturgeon is doing what the First Minister of Scotland and Head of the SNP is elected to do, i.e. represent their electorate,

"so you think, because our government aren't doing well, and are not popular, Labour should jump in, on the supposition that they'll be next in power?"

If the EU negotiators had cancelled meetings with Davis in order to meet with JC or NS, or if JC and NS were actually negotiating on our behalf I would agree with you. But that isn't whats happening, as far as I can see - JC and NS have no authority to negotiate for the UK. They are not being treated by the EU as though they do. They are just talking.

OK, I disagree, but we're obviously not going to agree on this.

lucydogz

Did you have the similar objections when:

As Leader of the Opposition, Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith had been holding talks in Washington with members of President George Bush's administration.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1682290.stm

As Leader of the Opposition, Conservative Party leader David Cameron met with US President George Bush?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/1570881/David-Cameron-to-meet-George-W-Bush-in-US.html

You seem to have an extremely limited understanding of how our democracy works, and has worked for decades.

I do agree that it is a bit cringy to watch; the UK must look so divided and disfunctional from the outside. But you can't expect opposition parties to present a united front with the government, that's not their role and never has been. I wouldn't expect that at the best of times, let alone in the toxic political environment we have now. Its only going to get more toe-curling, and I am expecting to spend the next 18 months (if not longer) cringing so hard I may turn inside out. But that's just one consequence of Brexit, I suppose.

You seem to have an extremely limited understanding of how our democracy works, and has worked for decades.
I've never claimed to have a great knowledge of events, in fact I'm posting because my understanding is limited. If it makes you happier to take me down a peg or two abi go ahead.

abilockhart

Re your "lucydogz, it's not so much that our government isn't doing well, our government is not functioning at all."

What a silly statement based on the state of the State in 2010 and a then government clueless what to do without a sticky plaster chequebook (and so did NOTHING like rabbits in headlights), versus now - and you accuse me of political bias?

Re the coalition in waiting and;

“Just because the Tories are enacting Lord of the Flies does not mean that Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon should be expected to down tools and do nothing.”

SNP-Sturgeon; wants to leave our Union for the EU ASAP, and does not accept the UK wide vote to leave the EU, as screw the leavers within, Scotland voted to Remain.

Labour-Corbyn; has been an MP since 1983, has been a professional ‘opposer’ since then (possibly with the record within his own party) and has not been trusted by his OWN party to be a minister, or even a shadow minister, until he became leader due to left wing membership coup

But on EU negotiations his leadership/Single market dithering on what Labour wants e.g. on free movement and customs union, has to balance his opinions with MPs/voters that saw different sides in his manifesto, so continues to sit on the fence and just 'oppose' (everything really).

Based on the above ‘credentials’, could someone please explain to me why Mr Corbyn and Mrs Sturgeon threatening to oppose the Conservative government in parliament on Brexit (and everything else really), should be allowed in any democracy - especially one straight after a general election, to ‘discuss’ the most important UK international agreement on BEHALF of the UK, with an aggressive negotiator looking after 27 other countries – with both their EU views, or in UK government, of negotiating UK agreements???

For months now the government has at least decided and will go into negotiations on a platform that based on our wish control our own borders, negotiate our own trade deals, and ditch the ECJ and net annual payments of £10-13 billion a year - we will leave both the Single market and Customs Union - as per the EU's insistence, especially Germany who runs the whole show.

If ANY UK party had gone into the last general election with a defined POLICY to keep 'a little bit' of the Single Market or of the Customs Union and gained close to a parliamentary landslide, then fine, the government would not have a democratic mandate - but as BOTH main parties voters THOUGHT their manifestos/position was to leave the Single Market actually increased their percentages of voters - so UNTIL Sturgeon and Corbyn 100% publicly commits to the UK leaving the Single Market/EU, and shows us THEIR plans, why should they be involved with EU negotiators on our behalf?

Naked ideological ambition to run the UK and opposing a Conservative government for a living, is no qualification to get involved negotiating Brexit, in my humble opinion.

TheaSaurass,

You have become completely obsessive and have lost all coherence at this stage.

Maybe it is time to take a little hiatus from Mumsnet?

"Naked ideological ambition to run the UK"
....Surely that's a pre-requisite for the leader of any major political party?

I've been waiting for you to break into Caps, Thea. The random underlining and bolding can only keep the urge at bay for so long, eh?

So far we have called it right in my household, everything since Labour was ousted.
Labour don't present well to the middle ground they need to turn to win the Election. Sorry but we are the middle ground, I would have voted for David, but never for Ed after the stabbed his brother in the back.
We knew the Con.Lib would end badly for the Libs as they grabbed power and upset their voters. So Con got in.
Had David followed up with his "if I don't get what I want I will lead the leave." this may have been different. but he never thought he would lose.
Gove, the stabbed Boris, and it left almost no one to step in.
If the men stopped their I want to be boss attitude and worked for the UK , May wouldn't be trying to protect her back all the time, and several newspapers are very much to blaim for this attitude.
The point of this is how is it helping us to get a good deal.
Corbyn never thought he would win, and I bet he is glad he didn't as he can now shout and throw sticks knowing he doesn't have to follow through on the things he offered, and so he gets to shout I should be PM as often as he wants.
He went to the EU to chat and I think he got a few hours to talk, becasue the EU know he has no power, but they also know it causes ripples over here.
I don;t think a WTA is going to be as bad as you think, as who do you think the EU will sell all the goods they make for the UK too?

I really think we will get a Hard Brexit and yes this is what I knew I was voting for, as 27 countries have to agree that what is decided profits them, really you think this will happen.

There was an interesting article in the Times op ed section this morning by a German involved in Euratom, Hans Olaf Henkel, who reckons that Barnier and Verhofstadt just want to make Brexit as hard and appalling as possible to discourage any other countries from taking any form of exit.

I don't want to leave; I voted to join in 73, but did not vote for a united states of Europe run by a corrupt crony state of unelected bureaucrats.

OCSockOrphanage: I don't know how true that is, but if it true that is not what we were promised before the vote. We were told that after leaving it would be perfectly straightforward to negotiate a better deal than the one we had within the EU, because this would be in the EU's interests too. When it was pointed out that the EU's economic interests were not the only consideration, but that it might be politically difficult to get a special, unprecedentedly wonderful deal for the UK, this was dismissed as project fear.

abilockhart

Why is anyone that disagrees with you "obsessive"?

Why not try taking on the perfectly valid points, especially if answering one of your 'points', rather than the poster - as that just shows view insecurity?

(Its such a shame, as I was a great fan of E.R., but thanks to you I've lost my warm and fuzzy feeling for both the character and the show.)

Squishy

"I've been waiting for you to break into Caps, Thea. The random underlining and bolding can only keep the urge at bay for so long, eh?"

Well short of adding a firework display, I wasn't sure how else I could get some posters I'm answering to acknowledge, never mind (god forbid) answer a question, that obviously makes them 'squirm'.

Does it work? Would you recommend it as a way I could get you to answer my questions on the other thread?

Sorry Thea, my last post was bitchy and I take it back.

Squishysquirmy, why would anyone believe what politicians tell us? Don't mean to be cynical, just getting old and tired of false promises.

TheaSaurass

You have posted TWENTY-SEVEN posts today alone on the topic of Brexit.

If you are not obsessive then you are a paid shill.

abilockhart

Firstly, I am having debates with several posters, across several subjects, I was busy over the weekend, do you ever count how many posts say Spinflight might post in a given period and tell her, have you counted how many posts CardinalSin might post, or my new best friend sending me flowers?

I suspect that based on your comments and time spent checking up, you are becoming 'obsessed' with me, which isn't healthy.

IMO you either need to get over me, or engage in the debate (especially if replying to your posts), it really is more productive and IMO a better read for others on the board.

But FYI I will be busy for a few days again, and although I'll try and look in (so don't talk about me too soon), feel free to count others posts in the meantime.